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“Let it be said to you, the most dangerous thing in the camp is to know anything.” That is what the “old-timers” say, and they have experience.
Understanding the holocaust, its impact and its lessons may sound like a reasonable, albeit difficult task, but has unexpected obstacles. These obstacles have formed a formidable wall that has stood in the way of grasping the essence of this catastrophic event. They consist of psychological barriers to knowing, remembering, and communicating what has happened.
Although after his ascent to power Hitler flaunted his plans for extermination of the Jews, and the press initially spelled out his pronouncements in detail, the general unwillingness of Jews and non-Jews alike to accept the fact that Hitler meant what he said played into the Nazis' diabolical attempt to keep the Final Solution secret. To this end they selected sites that suited their purpose of isolating the extermination camps from the rest of the world. Auschwitz was chosen primarily with the requirement of secrecy in mind. It was located in a sparsely populated, rural, and swampy area in Upper Silesia, now southwestern Poland. It seemed to be out of the reach of Allied airplanes and, therefore, safe from aerial reconnaissance. The only connections it had with the rest of the world were a railroad